NEW YORK—How long will choreographer William Forsythe run on? The celebrated wastrel turned 60 in 2009, and the year before he made a dance about it—“I don’t believe in outer space”—which received its local premiere at BAM on Wednesday. Among his worst, the piece is flea-market theater pretending that elements jumbled together “as if by chance” reflect a sly, avant-garde technique.

With apologies to Gloria Gaynor, whose 1978 anthem “I will survive” becomes a leitmotif in this rambling, tongue-in-cheek production, the Brooklyn Academy of Music should have changed its stupid lock, and made Forsythe leave his key. But now he’s back, and the look upon his face is not ingratiating.

This time, the big six-oh has reminded Forsythe of his mortality, prodding him in the ribs and inclining him to joke about it. Pina Bausch also had a good laugh contemplating the end when it didn’t really seem to matter, the difference being that her slapstick piece “Danzón” was genuinely imaginative and funny—oh, those “tiny, pink panties.” Bausch is also genuinely dead now, although this isn’t what makes her superior.

There comes a time when famous choreographers realize that their days are numbered. This moment of personal insight (who, me?) has almost become fashionable. Think of the icy figure of death in Paul Taylor’s “Beloved Renegade,” or Jirí Kylián desperately seeking refuge from a ticking clock in “Last Touch” and “27 minutes, 52 seconds.” George Balanchine’s romanticism attained a mystic height in his “Adagio Lamentoso.” Forsythe, however, adds nothing of significance to this genre.

Wads of electrical tape litter the stage in “Outer Space.” Supposedly a hail of charred meteorites that have survived (survived!) their fiery passage through the atmosphere, they are also grim messengers from the future. The dancers are encouraged to play with them, although those games aren’t as fun as a bout of invisible ping-pong.

Unsavory characters emerge, including a black-caped reprobate who advertises a secretarial position with erotic benefits in his basement office (watch out for the sewer rats); and a lumpy professor who lectures with his head bandaged. Dancer Dana Caspersen is the hit of the evening, changing voices as she takes both sides of a dialog between new neighbors—one, a rasp-voiced lecher and the other a nervous teatotaler who answers in a high-pitched squeak. In these episodes, Death makes a greasy and unwelcome proposition. We may all squeak, when Death insinuates that violating our bodies will be very much to its taste.

Only Gaynor and her fellow minstrels of love, like Cat Stevens, offer a nostalgic antidote to the operatic demands of mortality, also undercutting the raucous contributions of Forsythe’s long-time collaborator, Thom Willems. Yeah, baby, it’s a wild world, but typically Forsythe’s squirming, wrestling choreography comes apart before anything has been achieved. More and more, his loosey-goosy approach to making dances seems like indecision, and a way to avoid taking a stand.

Meanwhile, time is passing. As “Outer Space” winds down, Caspersen recites a monologue illustrating Forsythe’s solipsism. When one dies, she reflects, there will be no more skipping stones across a lake, no more tripping over roots in the country or walking down the street holding a three-year-old by the hand. Funnily, the choreographer ignores the fact that all these things will continue without him.